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Unravel the Mystery of this Simmer Switch Circuit...


Son of Samurai

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Take a look at the circuit for this electric cooktop element. Notice anything odd about it?

Screenshot 2021-01-06 020613.png

Looks pretty straightforward, right? Well, it certainly is straightforward when the simmer switch isn't closed. Here's what the circuit looks like when it's not running on simmer.

Screenshot 2021-01-06 020631.png

L1 goes through the simmer select board and a temperature-controlled switch, and L2 goes through the relay board and a couple other switches. Standard stuff for one of these elements.

But what's going on with those coils on the simmer select board? There's a double pole switch there, with one of the poles shown normally closed (the one that has L1 going through it to the elements) and the other normally open. What's the deal with these switches, and what do they have to do with the simmer function?

Furthermore, what's going on with those coils shown by each switch? Normally those indicate electromechanical relays, but the way the schematic is drawn, it looks like only one end of one of those coils is connected to the power supply. What gives?

This is one of those situations where you have to work around the vagueness of the schematic using your technical know-how. You know how things have to work -- for example, that a load needs to have a valid voltage supply and return in order to operate. Regardless of how strangely the engineers have drawn up those relay coils, we know that they have to be connected to the power supply somehow, even if it's not explicitly shown. It's just the only way in which this circuit can operate.

Once we've made that deduction, we can start tracing out what happens when the simmer switch is closed. L2 runs through the simmer switch and powers the relay coils, which in turn closes the lower of the two switches and opens the other one. This results in the following circuit configuration:

Screenshot 2021-01-06 020648.png

And now you see why this is the simmer function -- all this fancy switching around is just reducing the power supply to the elements from 240 VAC to 120, which will cut the heat output in half. That would have been a lot clearer if the schematic had been drawn better, but hey, figuring out stuff like this is part of the job.

Want to learn how to read schematics and apply that knowledge to real-world troubleshooting? Check out the Core appliance repair training course over at the Master Samurai Tech online appliance repair school.

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Been around this simmer setup many times, so real familiar with it. Good info here.  Puzzles me is why directly below the label "surface unit switch" the blue line is labeled L2/H2.  On the right side of the drawing, SAME SWITCH, different set of contacts, labeled H1/L1.  Sure seems like they're labeled backwards. 

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Son of Samurai

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6 hours ago, timt109 said:

Puzzles me is why directly below the label "surface unit switch" the blue line is labeled L2/H2.  On the right side of the drawing, SAME SWITCH, different set of contacts, labeled H1/L1.  Sure seems like they're labeled backwards.

I think you're right! Yet another example of sloppily drawn schematics.

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I just ran into a scenario with this that when the simmer select was turned on the element wouldn't operate at all. I would read 120v from one leg and either 0 or 60 from the other  it would vary. I'm guessing the case is that the simmer relays are closing one relay and not opening the other causing a weird phase in the voltage to the element? 

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